Death Plateau
by Owsta1997
Summary: In a remote, abandoned ice station miles from civilization, a natural disaster has opened up a cave. within that cave is a horror that guards something. Something that in the wrong hands, could destroy our planet...
1. Chapter 1

Death Plateau – Chapter 1

It had been nearly an hour since all contact had been lost with the dive team.

A routine check on the ice caps following a small earthquake recently had opened up a cavern in the ice, according to sonar scans, therefore a dive team consisting of ten of the bases best divers had been sent down, just to check if any damage had been done to the ice supporting the abandoned military base. Nobody knew why anyone would think to construct a small military base here, as it is deep in the remote arctic, over 100 nautical miles from the nearest area inhabited by humans, but the government said this base was 'important'. Naturally, this raised many superstitions as to what goes on in this remote military base, many people believed it was where the government once tested top secret weapons, and similar things to that.

All was fine when the dive squad hit 300 metres down; they were talking to one another over the microphones to each other and remaining in contact with the command centre over 100 miles away from them. Then one of the divers said to another: "do you have a visual on the cavern, Dive Leader?"

"Affirmative, Wilkes. Depth 319 metres below sea level, on a ledge in the ice shelf." Dive Leader replied. "To all divers, cavern looks dangerous, enter with caution, repeat, cavern looks dangerous, enter with caution." All the divers acknowledged and swam into the cavern cautiously.

Carefully, they climbed onto the raised ice inside the cavern, not wanting to slip and fall into the water and risk damaging the equipment. So far, there was nothing unusual about the descent and entry to the cavern. That's when it all started to go wrong. Horribly wrong.

As all the divers exited the water, they seemed to hear a noise further inside the cave.

"What the hell was that?" shouted one of the divers called Renshaw.

"Dunno" said Dive Leader.

The divers took off their dive gear and left it in the corner of the cave.

"Smith, Evans, you stay here and guard the cave entrance and dive gear. If anything happens, let us know immediately." ordered Dive Leader.

"Affirmative" They replied in unison.

"Right then team. Split into two parties. Clarke, French and Gant, team Alpha, come with me, we head northwest into the cave system. Rest of you, team Bravo, head northeast."

Thinking it was just a noise made by a chunk of ice falling; the squads proceeded into the cave in opposite directions, oblivious to the danger they had just gotten themselves into.

After about ten minutes of exploring the cavern, a voice came in over the radio. It was the voice of Smith, who was clearly in panic.

"Dive Leader, we have a code red situation back here! They came out of nowhere, Evans is dead, repeat, Evans is dead! It... It just dived out of some hole in the wall and bit his legs off!" he yelled.

"Remain calm, Smith. Just remain calm; we are coming to get you." Dive Leader ordered.

"It's back! Please! Someone help me, I don't ! Please... aaaarggh!"

Smith never finished off his sentence, but over the mic, the rest of the team heard a load roar and a blood curdling scream. Then the team heard a loud grunting noise, similar to what they heard earlier, and saw a huge shape silhouetted in the faint light of the cavern.

"Run!" yelled Clarke, one of the members of Alpha squad. The squad didn't need that much persuasion whatsoever. They turned around and ran through the cave system like Olympic sprinters. "Keep going! I don't want to get eaten!" screamed Dive Leader. On they ran through the tunnel for about ten minutes, until they were unable to hear the grunts of the beast. It was then they saw it.

"Oh my god..." breathed Dive Leader.

"Is that what I think it is?" asked Gant.

"Too damn right." replied Dive Leader.

Suddenly, a frenzy of panicked voices burst over the radio.

"Run! It's going to eat you... aggghhhhh!

"Henderson? What the fu... oh no... Help! Aaaarggh... Please..."

"I ain't gonna make it... no! Ugghhh..."

"What the hell!" yelled Dive Leader. "Renshaw, Henderson, Foster come in over, come in, ASAP!"

"I think that was the sound of Bravo squad being killed." French stammered.

Then another voice came in over the radio, the voice of Thomson, the remaining member of Bravo squad, who still seemed to be alive.

"Dive Leader report... Dive Leader, come in over... Henderson, Renshaw and Foster are K.I.A, repeat, Henderson, Renshaw and Foster are K.I.A. this beast just came outta goddamn nowhere! It was bloody murder! The thing ripped their damn bodies apart! Whatever you do, if you encounter that thing, for god's sake, run! Dive Leader, anyone! Can you hear me? This is Thomson, can you hear me? There's something in the ice, it looks like a missile..."

Thing is, nobody could hear Alpha squad. Alpha squad were dead. Johnson was alone. With a giant, lethal creature on the loose and a top secret British government ICBM silo, with a missile containing an active nuclear warhead embedded in the ice, which was capable of destroying half of the world. A lethal missile which had simply been abandoned when all the scientists were found dead, mauled to death by some creature.

Neither did Thomson know that some of the world superpower countries would do anything, pay any price, accept any losses, to get their hands on this missile.

This abandoned military research base Arctica, codenamed 'Death Plateau' was about to become a four way battlefield between four world superpowers. The small squad of British SAS troops that had just arrived to defend the abandoned base were in for the fight of their lives. Lieutenant Riley and his fellow troops of Her Majesty's SAS, the county's elite troops were a tough unit, all set to follow their leader to hell.

They soon discover they just did...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The SAS team were asleep when the alarm was sounded; hell, it was two in the morning.

"Come on team! Get moving!" shouted Lieutenant Riley. He knew that this was some serious trouble; the team wouldn't be given less than two hours sleep before a drill. This was something pretty serious alright. Less than two minutes later, twenty SAS troops were lined up inside the briefing room, in front of Colonel Gray, a tall man who had a grim expression set on his face. Before the team could salute, he spoke to them. This showed that what he was about to tell them was of high importance. "Right then, since you are all present and correct, I will start the briefing immediately. As you are probably all aware, at around seventeen hundred hours yesterday, all contact was lost with a group of 10 specialist divers after they explored a cavern opened up by a recent earthquake. Two strange things happened down there in that cavern. Firstly, they seemed to have encountered some kind of creature, nothing is known about it, other than the fact that it murdered our team, but secondly, and more importantly, down in that ice cavern, they found something. They claim that they found an ICBM down in that cavern. That missile was created during the Cold War because we, the British Government, feared an invasion by the Soviets. We created it to be fired at the USSR if they attacked us. But they didn't. So we left it in the ice station. In 1990, the entire base was caught in a huge blizzard for four days, and when it was finally over, we couldn't regain contact. So we sent out a team of SAS troops to the base, and they found fifty dead bodies, violently murdered, and the missile: the missile was still there. We decided the missile was no longer needed, and we deactivated it."

"Then how is it a threat then?" Asked one of the troops, a corporal named Jenkins.

"Because all that needs to be done to arm the missile is to replace the nuclear warhead, that is, if it is damaged in any way." replied the colonel. "Your objective is simple. Get to the base first and hold it until the main British force arrives to remove the missile. You are the closest troops to Death Plateau, get there first, and hold the base for around twenty four hours. You will be leaving the base in thirty minutes time. Good luck out there."

As soon as the troops had left the briefing room, they all ran to the barracks to grab their gear and prepare to leave. Riley went to the armoury first to take his weapon, an MP5K sub machine gun, the signature weapon of Special Forces teams worldwide. He then took extra items and went to grab the rest of his gear from the barracks.

Exactly on the deadline he had set, the colonel came outside to give last words to the troops before departure. He told the team to split into two, one half would go down to the missile once the base was confirmed to be clear, the other half would stay above ground and defend the base from whatever might attack it. The colonel read out a register of the team to stay above ground and the team to go down to the missile. Riley was ordered to keep his team above the ground. The troops climbed into the helicopters which would take them to the base, taking with them two light assault hovercrafts and a few mortars. The squad instantly knew that they were up for a fight.

TWO HOURS LATER

The helicopters carrying the team and their equipment landed at the base. As soon as the helicopters touched the ground, the vehicles were driven out and the team leapt out afterwards, in their arctic camouflage and heartbeat sensors attached to their weapons. Then Sergeant Daniel Foster, one of the snipers, spoke in a whisper to the rest of the team.

"Something isn't right. Just look at the base, it... it looks like someone has been in here recently. Look, footprints! He said suddenly."

"You're right Dan, tracks look about an hour old, I'd say. Someone got here first and hastily tried to cover up their tracks. Stay sharp, we're going in."

"No, wait! I saw movement up there in the top window on the right" said Dan.

Then one of the privates suddenly yelled "SNIPER! GET TO..."

He didn't finish his sentence because a .50 calibre bullet hit him squarely in the middle of his chest, directly over his heart. He was dead long before he hit the ground. Instantly, the two Chinook helicopters tried to take off, abandoning the team, but the first one was hit on the rear engine, spiralling out of control, slamming into the other helicopter. The second helicopter exploded and the wreckage of the two helicopters landed on the ground all around the SAS troops. Whilst the troops were scrambling to avoid the falling wreckage, the snipers in the building picked off another two of them, leaving only seventeen remaining. Riley and the troops sought cover amongst the wreckage of the helicopters.

"How are we going to kill the snipers, sir?" Asked Corporal Jenkins, knowing they would be butchered if they ventured out into the open.

"Simple. Use the mortars" replied Sergeant Washington.

"Precisely" replied Riley.

As the team frantically set up the four mortars, the remainder of the team kept the snipers pinned down behind cover. Within twenty seconds, the four mortars were set up.

"Quickly! Load it!" shouted the Lieutenant. The teams did so.

"Fire!" he yelled. The effect was instantaneous. The snipers, who were on the top floor of the building had nowhere to run as mortar shells ripped great chunks out of the building roof, blasting it to pieces. Then, one of the rounds got a direct hit, and six bodies were hurled from the building by the force of the explosion.

"Cease fire! Cease fire!" shouted the Lieutenant. He knew that there could not possibly be any of the snipers left. He ran towards the bodies to check their uniforms. Mercenaries. This meant one country had found out and paid mercenaries to wreak havoc amongst the British team, causing as many casualties as possible.

"Who paid them do you think?" asked Washington.

"Those people over there" replied Riley, pointing his hand towards a cluster of assault hovercraft on the horizon. Each hovercraft had a red flag with a cluster of yellow stars in the top left corner.

"Chinese" groaned Washington, as he spat on the ground.

"Ah crap" muttered Jenkins.


End file.
